The Lost Christmas
by Necron Caelestis
Summary: Just a little Christmas gift from me to y'all. Supposed to be a nice, fun little side adventure, so don't read too much into it... ...Or should you?


_The Lost Christmas_

Lilly smiled as she finished off the Christmas tree with a star at the very top. Every year she and her mother would celebrate this happy season alone, but even though it was just the two of them in this small house an hour away from Atlas, it was never lonely. She turned around as the front door opened and ran to give her mom a tight embrace.

"I love you, mama," she said.

It was impossible to stop the smile. "I love you, too, my dearest," Weiss said.

"Oh!" Lilly said. "Tree's finished!"

"Good. I got us your favorite coffee beans, by the way. Straight from Menagerie."

"Awesome! Are you gonna blend it with the ones you got from Patch?"

"Of course."

"Aww, yiss!"

They both headed to the kitchen when knocking came from the front door.

"Huh?" Lilly said. "Who could that be?" She opened the door to a smiling family of four and gasped, throwing her hands to her face.

"Merry Christmas!" the entire Rose Family greeted her.

"Oh my god! You guys made it!" Lilly jumped up and down.

"I wasn't gonna let my family miss this," Leon said, giving her a hug. "Hi, Miss Schnee."

"Leon," Weiss said.

"Weiss!" Ruby yelled before running and sharing a tight embrace with her.

"Snow Angel!" Jaune said, joining in the embrace.

"Hey, it's Silver Maiden," Ruby said to him.

"Yeah, yeah."

"Nice house," Athena said, looking around. "So, this is Oasis, huh?"

"Yup!" Lilly said, giving her a hug.

"I mean, I knew it never snowed here, but this is insane. Literally we drove through snow to get here and then all of a sudden the air is warmer."

"Yeah, crazy, huh?"

Two more vehicles pulled up at the side of the road. One was a big van. Out of the car emerged the Ren Family, with Nora driving and Ren sitting in the passenger seat.

"Yuan!" Lilly said, running out to greet everyone. "I'm so glad all of you guys could make it!"

"Hey, Lilly," Yuan said, embracing her. He turned to the big van behind them, watching as Ingrid stomped out of the back seat, followed by a number of siblings, all of them cat Faunus save for the one monkey Faunus who took after their father.

"Ren! Nora!" Sun Wukong greeted as he stepped out of the van.

"Would you guys stop fighting?" Blake yelled at their children.

"Sorry, mom," they all said at once.

"Thank you!"

As Lilly led the whole party to the house, she looked down the road, spotting a yellow and black motorcycle roll toward them. She recognized the golden hair right away.

"Sup, Lilly," Yang said, disembarking her bike.

"Auntie Yang!" Lilly said, embracing her.

"Heh, I'm still your auntie, huh?"

"Heck yeah! Best auntie ever, too!"

Weiss's house was tiny compared to the others' homes, but a small house filled to the brim with loved ones is infinitely better than an empty mansion. There weren't enough chairs to go around, but that didn't matter. It had been far too long since Weiss last saw her best friends and comrades from the old war. The only one missing now was her sister.

Lilly's scroll rang and she picked it up. "Hello? Oh, hey, Aunt Winter! Yeah, she's here. Mom!"

"Lilly, what did I say about yelling across the house like that?" Weiss said.

"Sorry," she said sheepishly. "Oh! It's Aunt Winter!"

Weiss smiled as Lilly handed the phone to her. "Hey, sis, how's it going?"

"Just waiting for you to open up," Winter said through the earpiece.

Weiss's eyes widened as she hurried to the front door and opened it to reveal Winter, her daughter, Ivory, and Whitley.

"Hey, sis," Whitley said.

"What are you two doing here?" Weiss said with shock all over her face.

"What?" Winter said. "You didn't think we could squeeze a few hours out of our busy schedules to see our middle sibling?"

Weiss gave both of them long embraces before turning to Ivory. "Hey, young lady. You haven't been giving your mom a hard time, have you?"

"Of course not," Ivory said, as haughty as ever. "I cannot afford to do such silly things with the Schnee name resting on my shoulders."

"Good. C'mon inside."

It wasn't long before the time came to exchange gifts. As Weiss hadn't expected everyone to show up like this, she had nothing prepared for them, but Ruby had assured her that it was fine. It was about time at least someone in the world showed the Silver Maiden the gratitude they all owed her for saving the planet almost two decades ago.

"I hope you all like coffee," Weiss said, handing cups to everyone.

"You always had good taste in this stuff," Yang said, taking a sip. "Yeah, that hasn't changed."

"Did you get this from Menagerie?" Blake asked her.

Weiss nodded as she took a sip. Ruby was making a face as she drank her own coffee.

"Did you want a half-pound of sugar and cream with your coffee?" Weiss asked her.

"If you have some!" Ruby said.

The others shared a sigh.

"Oh," Ivory said, walking up to Lilly. "I got you something as well. I hope you appreciate it."

"A snowflake?" Lilly said. "Oh! It's pretty!"

"It's not just any snowflake, you baboon. This is the crest of the Schnee Family. This is my way of officially recognizing you as not only a member of this family, but as my elder, even though I am the one carrying on the Schnee name."

Lilly threw her arms around her younger cousin, shocking her into paralysis. But even the cold-hearted Ivory was warmed by her elder cousin's gleeful touch.

"I'm glad you were able to make it," Lilly said as she hugged her tightly. "I know we've had our differences, but I don't care about any of that."

"I, too, apologize about anything I may have said to disparage you. I was merely frustrated at how my elder cousin could be so...free, compared to myself and our other cousins."

"You could be free, too, you know," Lilly said, holding her at arm's length.

"Perhaps. But I choose to bear the Schnee Family burden. Like Aunt Weiss, I wish to uplift our family's name with a gesture to surpass even that of the Silver Maiden."

"Is that even possible?" Leon said, moseying over to them.

"Perhaps not. After all, sealing away Salem and killing two Maidens is not exactly a walk in the park. If you'll excuse me."

She walked away to leave Lilly with Leon.

"So," Leon said, edging toward her. "Cool party, huh?"

"Maybe," Lilly said, tilting her head to the side.

"Hey," Ingrid said as she and Yuan joined them. "You guys wanna go outside?"

"Sure."

The quartet left the house, followed shortly by Athena, who was hanging up her scroll.

"Guess who just got here," she said.

"Foreal?" Lilly said, her eyes widening.

A car rolled up to the side of the house. Xanthus and Echo got out.

"Good afternoon," Xanthus greeted them as he pushed up his glasses. "Apologies for being so late."

"It's his fault," Echo sighed before giving Athena a hug.

"I'm afraid it is my fault. I could not decide between a blue tie and a red tie."

"And that's why I bought him a red and blue tie."

"It goes with your eyes," Leon said. "Both of them."

The group shared a chuckle.

"So," Ingrid said. "Team LILY and Team AXE."

"Lemme axe you guys a question," Leon said.

"Keep that up and I'll axe your head."

"Hey," Echo said to Lilly. "You said you had a river around here where water lilies grow, right?"

"Yeah!" Lilly said. "You guys wanna go check it out?"

"I'm down for a nice march," Athena said. "How far is it?"

"Maybe a half hour's walk over that way," Lilly said, pointing toward the nearby mountains. "The mountains all get snow cuz they're outside the magical field of Oasis, so this river's always getting water from up there."

"Well, water we waiting for?" Leon said with a grin. Everyone else glared at him, everyone except Lilly, who gave him a high five. "At least the Snow Princess appreciates me."

"I does appreciates you!" Lilly said, hugging him from behind as they began their march.

The entire walk was spent in reminiscence of their time at Beacon. They were only halfway through their second year there, but already it felt like it had been so long since they all met and formed a team. It was unfortunate that Perseus could not be with them today, but his family's strict ways rivaled that of even the Schnee Family. Some things just could not be helped.

"Hey," Lilly began, walking backwards in front of the group. "I was thinking about planning this year's Winter Formal dance."

"How cool," Leon said, smiling. "Cuz you're the Snow Princess, so it's cool—"

"Okay!" Ingrid snapped.

"I can plan it with you," Athena said. "The two best leaders of the two best teams Beacon's ever seen? This is sure to be a blast."

"And I will be sure to post the announcement on the student bulletin," Xanthus said.

"You really are taking your duties seriously, aren't you?" Leon said to him.

"Of course! I was voted in by the entire student body of our class year. I have the duty not to let them down!"

"If you were running for president of Vale," Yuan began, "you would definitely have my vote."

"Count me in," Echo said.

"I think you'd have everyone's votes," Ingrid said.

"Here it is!" Lilly said, skipping ahead of the group.

They all followed her into the woods, where it was starting to snow.

"I thought it doesn't snow here," Leon said, holding out a hand and catching a flake.

"It's not supposed to," Athena said. "And it's too warm to be snowing."

"Yeah," Ingrid said. "These shouldn't even be able to form."

"Perhaps it is another property of whatever magical field permeates this area," Xanthus said, defogging his glasses. "After all, it is abnormal to have a region of temperate weather in the center of permafrost to begin with. Whatever is causing this phenomenon must be allowing this new phenomenon to exist."

"The pond's grown bigger!" Lilly said, squatting at the edge of the body of water, where a number of animals, including ducks and geese, congregated. She reached in to pull out a water lily. She smiled as she sniffed the flower, which had a sweet, watery scent to it. Echo knelt beside her, watching a turtle swim closer to them. It sat at the edge of the water for a while before diving to disappear beneath the surface again. Lilly let out a giggle and Echo gave her a smile.

"This one's for you!" she said, handing the purple lily to Echo.

"Oh," she said. "Thanks."

Lilly got up with an armful of the flowers, handing one to each of her friends, a dark blue one for Ingrid, a dark red one for Leon, a cyan one for Yuan, a red and white one for Athena, and a yellow one for Xanthus.

"I got a little somethin' somethin' for you, too," Leon said, pulling out a white rose from behind his back.

Lilly gasped as she accepted the flower, sniffing its rosy scent. "Where'd you get this?"

"Secret."

"You stole that from her mom's garden," Ingrid whispered to him.

"Shh!"

"This is so pretty!" Lilly said.

"Pretty rose for a pretty girl," Leon said with a grin.

She instantly reddened and turned away from him, smiling as she admired the white rose between her fingers.

Echo quickly drew her bow at the exact same time that the animals in the area fled. Knowing of her danger-sense Semblance, the rest of the group also went into high alert, drawing their weapons to engage whatever that was that invaded this sacred place.

"An Omega!" Athena yelled, throwing her spear at the monster. It swatted her weapon away, but she recalled it quickly with her Semblance.

"I've got another one here!" Leon said, squaring off with it alongside Yuan.

"And here!" Xanthus yelled.

"Four of them altogether!" Echo said, taking aim at the last one with her bow.

"This isn't good," Athena said. "If there were only two, we'd be able to take them down easily. I'll take this one solo. The rest of you, pair up!"

"Let's do this," Xanthus said, standing beside Echo.

"You and me?" Leon said to Lilly, who nodded.

Yuan and Ingrid were the first to engage their target, attacking with high speed and technique. Each pair synthesized almost perfectly, combining speed with strength, melee with range. But no matter how much training they'd been through, these Omega Grimm were still far too much for them to handle. It was no different from fighting a veteran Huntsman, except far more ruthless.

"We're not doing any damage to them," Leon said.

"Go help your sister," Lilly said.

"What about you?"

"I can hold this guy off for a while. Hurry! Athena's not gonna last against that thing on her own!"

He grunted as he activated his Semblance and teleported to his sister's side. Lilly faced off with the Omega Grimm.

"I am not one to be trifled with," she mumbled, holding up Myrtenaster. "I hope you realize who you're dealing with. After all, my mother is the Silver Maiden!"

She dashed forward, delivering a rapid series of strikes with her mother's sword, her speed completely overwhelming the Omega's defenses. But in spite of her agility, she still lacked the strength necessary to break the monster's aura. She somersaulted away, launching an Ice Dust attack at the same time, which had minimal effect against her enemy.

It lunged at her and she countered by darting forward, delivering a strike to its head before vaulting off its shoulders and landing behind it to launch a powerful Fire Dust attack mixed with orange Explosive Dust. The blast knocked it to the earth and she leaped into the air to stab it in the back, but it quickly turned and swatted her away. She smashed into a tree and gasped as the wind was knocked out of her. She managed to maintain her hold on Myrtenaster, though.

"Lilly!" Leon yelled before holding up Vermillion Crescent to block a strike from the Omega he and Athena were fighting.

None of the others could give her assistance. The Omegas they faced were too cunning. This would be a duel between the last Omega and Lilly, the latter of whom was standing up, pushing off of the tree to confront the monster head on. No one in this group had ever seen such a ferocious look on her face before. The smiles and laughter were buried beneath a scowl that should have been a warning to the Omega Grimm of what was about to come.

"You think something like that is enough to bring me down?" she growled. "Take this!"

She held Myrtenaster forward and a number of geometric shapes and foreign text appeared in the middle of the air, surrounding her opponent. It looked around in confusion before the sigils all launched powerful elemental attacks at the monster, fire, ice, wind, lightning, earth, even spears of light and shadow. When the debris had finally settled and the sigils vanished, her opponent's aura broke and she could not stop the grin from forming on her face.

"What the heck just happened?" Ingrid said.

"Her family's Semblance does allow her to use glyphs," Yuan began, "but I've seen Ivory and Winter use their glyphs and they look nothing like what she just did."

"Yeah. What she just did wasn't any different from magic."

"Have you had enough yet?" Lilly shouted at the monster, which roared. "Good. I don't want this being _too_ easy!"

She aimed Myrtenaster at her enemy once more, creating another sigil different from the ones prior. It was enormous in size and infinitely more complex. Out of the center emerged something large, something humanoid. It was a man in a suit of armor, facing her with its sword directed into the earth. She stared with a grin at the thing in front of her. It was identical in appearance to the marble knight statue that stood in the center of Beacon Academy's quad.

"What on earth is that?" Xanthus said as he and Echo stared at the knight.

Sensing danger, Echo tackled Xanthus out of the way of a Fire Dust attack from their enemy Omega. They watched as the burning projectile flew toward the knight, who swiftly spun around, dispelling the attack with his sword. He gave a glance toward Lilly before proceeding to cleave her enemy in half with a single swing. He vanished in a gust of wind, appearing behind the Omega Athena and Leon had been facing, driving his sword into its back, completely bypassing its aura.

He disappeared again, this time relocating next to Ingrid and Yuan's enemy, decapitating it with one swing before flying as an explosive ball of light toward the final Omega and goring it to the ground before driving his sword into its chest, staring down his opponent as its life faded away.

Lilly watched as the knight floated over the lake back to her, standing before her for some time. She was overwhelmed by a sense of familiarity. This was it. This was her ghost, the one who had been with her all her life. She reached up to lift the knight's visor, but he gently took hold of her hand, stopping her.

"Why?" she said.

 _It is not yet time._

"I don't understand."

He backed away from her momentarily before her mind was flooded with an ocean of emotion, every single one warm and gentle. She fell to her knees, tears falling from her eyes from the sensations. She looked back up at the knight. Even though she could not see his face, she could sense a smile underneath that helmet, one that enveloped her with tranquil wings as he began to fade away in shimmering silver and gold and blue dust.

"Wait!" she said, reaching out. "Don't go!"

He, too, reached out, his hand touching hers before disappearing. She continued staring into space for a while before a hand placed itself on her shoulder. She looked up to see Leon.

"C'mon," he said. "I think it's time to head back home."

The kids refrained from worrying the adults with what they had gone through during their little outing, sharing only the trip itself and leaving out the Omega Grimm attack. While they were gone, three more had joined the party. Hillphire, Penny, and Hollie had all come together from Mistral aboard one of Hillphire's personal transforming shuttles.

"She sure takes after him, doesn't he?" Penny said to Hillphire.

"Yeah," Hillphire said. "She gets flowers for everybody and everything."

"I don't care what anybody says," Hollie added. "Rainbow is a color, dammit."

Penny and Hillphire couldn't hold in their chuckles.

"The coffee is great, by the way," Penny said to Weiss.

"At least somebody here can appreciate pure, untarnished coffee," Weiss said. "What about you two?"

Both Hillphire and Hollie started babbling excuses.

"Yeah, yeah," Weiss said. "Hell, Hillphire doesn't even drink coffee."

"That's what I'm saying!" he said. "Thank you for the tea, by the way. It's delicious."

"I'm glad you like it. Lilly grows it herself. Well, she used to until she shipped off to Beacon. That's from the very last batch she harvested before she left."

It was late in the evening when it was time for everyone to go home. It was a nice evening for everyone to catch up, but the old generation had their duties.

"Do we seriously have to go?" Leon whined.

"You're not a baby anymore, Leon," Ruby said. "Stop your whining."

"I don't mind if they all stay the night," Weiss said.

"See? Auntie Weiss is okay with it!"

"W-What did you just call me?"

Ruby looked at Jaune, who shrugged.

"It would be a simple matter to send a shuttle here to pick them all up in the morning," Winter said.

"It's nice having all these connections," Nora said.

"If Ingrid wants to stay, that's fine with me," Blake said.

"What about you?" Lilly asked Ivory.

"I'd love to stay," she said, "but unfortunately I need to study."

"You can get by missing one night of studying," Winter said to her daughter, who stared at her wide-eyed. "What? I am perfectly capable of allowing you some respite. Study is important, but so is rest. You can't let yourself get burned out, you know."

"Oh, th-thank you, mother."

"Well, Weiss," Whitley said, "it's been a real slice."

Weiss gave her siblings hugs before moving on to everyone else.

"Are you two staying, too?" Lilly asked Xanthus and Echo.

"Only if my driver says it's okay," Echo said.

"Of course!" Xanthus said. "I would never squander the opportunity for us to bond together as a team like this!"

"So, Team LILY and Team..." Leon trailed off. "AXIE?"

"Sorry, I have my own team already," Ivory said.

"Whoa-hoho, my bad, Princess."

"Hmph! Just because you have won over my elder cousin does not mean you and I will be instant friends, Mr. Rose."

"Yowza," Athena said. "I can't say you don't deserve that, little bro."

"Psh," he grumbled.

Lilly brought out the mats and futons they had stashed away for just such an occasion. They fortunately had just enough for everyone and they all bundled up in Lilly's room, with her sharing her big bed with Ingrid, Athena, and Ivory. Echo had opted to sleep on the floor at the foot of the bed. As much as she wanted to snuggle up between Lilly and Athena, she didn't think she could handle the embarrassment.

The three boys, on the other hand, were scattered about the ground between the bed and the TV, all of them embroiled in a videogame battle against one another.

"Echo!" Leon said. "You want in on this?"

Echo rolled around until she was facing the TV. "Lilly has a videogame console?" she said.

"Nah, it's mine." He slid a controller to her. "C'mon, it's a free-for-all!"

She shrugged before joining in.

"So," Ingrid said to Lilly. "What was that thing?"

"The knight?" Lilly said.

"Yeah," Athena said. "That was pretty crazy."

"Knight?" Ivory said.

They proceeded to explain to her what had happened.

"Hmph. Had I been there, you would not have even needed to resort to such a dire measure."

"It wasn't so much dire as it was awesome," Athena said. "And unexpected. She was already winning when that thing showed up out of nowhere."

"It is true that we Schnees are capable of summoning fallen enemies to our side as allies. However, that would require the family Semblance, which you do not possess."

Lilly stared up at the ceiling.

"Whatever," Ingrid said. "It was pretty cool."

"I'll be back," Lilly said, getting out of the bed. "Thirsty. You guys want anything to drink?"

They all shook their heads. The boys and Echo were so involved in their battle that no one noticed her question. Echo held a fist up in victory as she took out all three of the boys at once.

"Dude!" Leon said, dropping his controller. "How the hell did you do that?"

Echo snickered before sitting up to take the game more seriously. Lilly chuckled before heading out of the room to get some water. Her mother was already in the kitchen, brewing some coffee.

"Oh, good," Weiss said. "I think I made a little too much. Have some."

"Thanks, mom," Lilly said, taking a sip from her mug. "The blend's perfect as always."

"So. Do you mind telling me what was up with all that magic hubbub over at the woods?"

Lilly froze.

"I could feel that from all the way here."

"What do you mean?"

Weiss looked down at the ground. "Never mind."

"No, mom, tell me."

She looked straight into her daughter's eyes, those eyes that she had inherited from him. "I'm glad you were able to see him, even if just for a fleeting moment."

"'Him'?"

Weiss smiled before heading to her room. "All in its time, Lilly," she said, shutting the door behind her.

Of course, Lilly was left with more questions than ever. Who was that knight? And how did her mother know about all the things that happened out there? Not only that, she knew exactly what had happened, including the fact that she had somehow summoned that knight in the first place.

"Something the matter?" Leon said, joining her in the kitchen.

She shook her head. "Just thinking."

"About that knight thing?"

"And other things."

He leaned against the counter beside her, staring off into space.

"Want some?" she asked him, offering coffee.

"Why not?"

She poured him a cup and he took a sip.

"I still have to get used to drinking this without any cream and sugar," he said.

"Those two things always ruin coffee," she said.

"So you say," he chuckled, taking another sip. "Hmm. This one's not as bitter as the others. There's a hint of sweetness to it."

"That's the blend my mom does of beans from Patch and from Menagerie."

"Ah, that's why it tastes familiar."

"You've had this before?"

"You don't remember? Our little trip to that one coffee shop in Vale?"

"Oh. Right."

He stood in thought for a while. "I'm glad we met."

She smiled at him. "Me, too."

He held up his mug. "Merry Christmas?"

She touched her mug to his. "Merry Christmas."


End file.
